IF, as the adage goes, football is played 99 per cent above the shoulders, Port Adelaide mentor Ken Hinkley has the art and science of coaching 100 per cent sorted at Alberton.

First, Hinkley made his players believe they were physically fitter than any other AFL team — and could outrun any opposition presented. As Carlton coach Michael Malthouse noted, it did not matter if this was considered true or not around the league competition. More important was whether the Power players believed it.

And now after grinding to an 18-point win against Fremantle at Adelaide Oval on Saturday, Hinkley has his players believing in their game plan and that hard work does indeed bring its rewards. For all that is made of the power in the Port players’ legs after fitness coach Darren Burgess’ pre-season program began in Dubai in late November, nothing is more powerful than Hinkley’s crew believing they can play football that beats anyone, anywhere, anytime.

The once mentally weak Port Adelaide football team is now a tough nut.

A year ago, the Power would not have endured in the physically and mentally demanding contest Dockers coach Ross Lyon crafted at the Oval at the weekend. But today they are true believers of the Hinkley way.

Think of this script. Fremantle is leading by five points at three-quarter time. Hinkley removes the only recognised ruckman, Brent Renouf, from the line-up — and this is after Renouf was called up to replace lead ruckman Matthew Lobbe (calf soreness at training on Friday). The opposition has the game’s biggest and most-dominant ruckman, Aaron Sandilands, and hard-bodied midfielders such as Nat Fyfe.

Now if the coach is going to be bold and brave, it has to come with a message of extraordinary faith in the Power midfielders to win the contested football, particularly at the centre circle, and set up a hard-running game to break open a game that was being locked down by the Dockers. There has to be extraordinary certainty that the coach has sold a message to his players — and they can live it.

The result — a five-goal charge with no answer from the Dockers to set up a 30-point lead at time-on of the last term — highlights why this Power team is no one-year wonder from 2013 and why it is much harder to crack. Hinkley has achieved the coaching objective of making his players believe they are winners — and he has protected them from hubris by increasing their willingness to strive for better results. This is a potent mix that has delivered the Power’s best start (7-1) to an AFL season.

Imagine the ridicule Hinkley would be facing today had his decision to bench Renouf backfired. His gamble delivered. Key defender Jackson Trengove, who has an extraordinary leap, denied Fremantle the first-look-of-the-ball advantage from Sandilands. And once the ball fell straight to ground — rather than into space where the Dockers’ midfielders would have been on their skates — the 50-50 contests were devoured by the Power on-ballers, in particular Robbie Gray whose last quarter was a matchwinning effort.

So was the five-goal return of opportunist forward Chad Wingard who lit up the Oval’s scoreboards while Fremantle’s equivalent, Hayden Ballantyne, was being held to no goal by eight-game Power defender Jarman Impey. If the AFL’s All-Australian selectors do not acknowledge how Impey held Ballantyne to just nine touches by making the teenager the Rising Star nomination this week, the Power faithful should create a greater public outcry than the outrage heard last week with Melbourne youngster Jack Viney’s ban.

So why did Hinkley take the high-risk chance on watching his part-time ruckmen Justin Westhoff and Trengove be mauled by Sandilands and setting up the Power midfielders for tail-chasing inside their Portress?

“I believe in the boys’ run and how they can keep going,” Hinkley said. “It was a bold call. But I was confident Jackson and Justin could carry it for 30 minutes.”

Lyon acknowledged the Power players — in particular Gray — were insatiable in their hunting of the ground ball. He quoted the statistic of Gray claiming six of these 50-50 opportunities and Port blitzing with 10 inside-50 entries while conceding one as the Dockers again failed to score more than 11 goals.

By contrast, Port can defend — and not sacrifice scoring power.

“We believe in what we do,” Hinkley said. “That is the key message — do what we want to do. Defend real hard — that is the key thing for us. To hold a team to 37 inside-50s makes it hard for them to kick a winning score. But to then match this with 54 of our own inside-50s ...”

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